Never Forget
by starry-oblivion
Summary: One turtle realizes that he's forgotten. A Donatello centric 911 story. Rated T for potentially touchy subject matter.


When I snuck outside to get the paper this morning, I wondered why the world was gray.

It's been pretty sunny and humid for the past few days. Everyone was wearing t-shirts and the kids would come out of school complaining about the amount of homework they already have even though they just started school a few days ago. And now, people were wearing jackets on their way to work and class, being uncharacteristically solemn, even for New York City.

When I came back to the lair, I noticed that Leonardo was rather quiet, too. Raphael was sitting at his bench press, but he wasn't actually lifting weights. Michelangelo was still sleeping. I thought this was odd, since Sensei made sure that we were all up by six o'clock every morning, but then I noticed that Sensei wasn't anywhere to be seen. I wondered if something had happened to him, but I could see through the crack of his bedroom door that his candles were burning.

Feeling wholly uncomfortable, I turned on my computer and decided to check my e-mails before getting something to eat. As it booted up and my calendar popped into the Windows sidebar, I felt a sudden chill. It was Tuesday, September 11th, 2007. On a Tuesday exactly six years ago, the World Trade Center was attacked, supposedly changing American lives forever.

I'm not a patriotic sort of guy. Given my expansive knowledge of history, you could even say that I'm pretty displeased by the country and its actions. But that doesn't change the fact that I love what this country was _built_ for. Regardless of how the settlers treated the natives or about the ever-closing minds of the people in charge, America was meant to be a country of freedom. Built by and for the people. Which is all very nice, even when no one bothered to mention mutant turtles in the Bill of Rights.

Still, there's not a single New Yorker who doesn't feel that 9/11 wasn't a direct attack on his or her way of life, on his or her very _spirit_. When my family and I got the news, it wasn't until April and Casey came in crying that we were willing to believe it. Casey Jones. Crying. I thought he was incapable of that. But that day brought about the most amazing impossibilities.

Manhattan had been in ruins, both from the smoke and from the panicked people that tried to run away from the insanity before the buildings collapsed on them. We managed to make it over to Brooklyn and stand at the top of the bridge. It was packed with people walking home. The subways had been shut down. From where the four of us were, we could see the black smoke that looked like a malicious entity where one of the city's most famous landmarks had been only hours ago.

I remember holding Mikey. He had tried to be strong for a good deal of the day, but he couldn't bear to watch all of those people with soot over their faces, walking tiredly across the bridge, some screaming over having left someone behind, some stopping and collapsing in sheer exhaustion. Even as he cried against my shoulder, I couldn't bring myself to react. I had just held him against myself, hoping that this was only a bad dream.

Raphael remarked that he was going to be sick. He pulled Mikey away from me, saying that he was going to take him back to the lair and calm him down. I hadn't thought about it then, but it was a gesture that I would have attributed more to Leo.

Leo and I sat together for hours on top of the bridge. Either no one noticed us, or they thought we were just figments of their overwrought imaginations. As night fell, I wondered if there was no _end_ to the people who had journeyed into the city early that morning only to trek their way out of it.

It eventually got to be dark enough that we could finally see the flashing lights of the ambulances and other emergency personnel. When I would later discover how many people I inadvertently watched die, I would breakdown on the main floor of the lair. For now, I felt numb. That is, until I heard a rumble and saw a sudden disturbance in the horizon.

7 World Trade Center, one of the smaller buildings surrounding the Twin Towers, had just collapsed. Leo and I both cried out, and the screams from the people beneath us picked up again. I put a hand over my mouth. The bile rising in the back of my throat made me wish that I was still numb. It was then that I felt the tears finally rush to my eyes, eerie in their silence.

"Why," Leo murmured besides me. "Why do they… why do they _do_ this?" From the corner of my eye, I could see him standing, the breeze making the ties of his bandanna billow behind him. "How can human beings have so much hatred for people who are just like _them_? How can anyone really organize something that would… that can just… that…."

As his worlds failed him, I stood besides him. Even in the darkness as the smoke from the new collapse wafted over, I could see that this had been the final straw for him too. Leo. My big brother. Crying over the injustices of the world. A world that can't even live amongst themselves, never mind with the discovery of people like us living just below them.

"Donnie," he told me, apparently seeing that I was crying. He put his hands on my shoulders and choked out, "You're the smart one. There has to be a reason, right? There has to be some scientific, psychological reason why they behave with so much _hate_."

The gloom surrounding us didn't hide the fact that he knew the answer as well as I did. I shrugged slowly. When I spoke, my voice was cracked and parched. "They're only human, Leo. They don't know anything else."

The answer was a grim one, but it was something that my brothers and I have decided on long ago. Seeming to accept this besides its horrific implications, Leonardo pulled me towards him. As I embraced him back, we both let the tears fall freely.

In a world as crazy and chaotic as this, where did we fit in? We were human enough to be able to feel for the people who were lost and for those who lost someone. But we were just inhuman enough to not fully understand why it had to happen. Maybe, in something as tragic as this, there _is_ no understanding. It just happens. And as we held each other tighter and let the sobs become more audible, both of us knew that something "just happening" has terrifying implications.

All these memories rushed back into my head as I sat at my computer six years later. Despite the situation in Iraq and the general unrest the public seemed to exhibit, how much had life really changed for us? The World Trade Center had simply come to be known as Ground Zero, and receives even more tourists than it ever did before. Once the television signals were fixed after the initial attacks, people calmed down somewhat when they were able to finally watch the new fall season. After a few months, the American flags that inexplicably sprouted up eventually came down and were now few and far between. People had gone back to their normal life.

"Never Forget." That was the tagline, wasn't it? On every t-shirt and sticker and poster about the disaster that sprung up on the streets of Chinatown, there was written, "9-11-01. Never Forget." And until the anniversary of that fateful day rolls around, people _do_ forget. Even people like me; the "smart one" who never forgets the facts.

I didn't realize that I was crying until I felt someone put their arms around my shoulders. "It is all right," came Sensei's gentle whisper. "We cannot change what has been done. We can only hope that the same mistakes are not made in the future."

"And what if they are," Raphael asked, rising from his bench. "The world hasn't changed any. People are still out there, bombin' babies and killin' strangers. Why won't these stupid people just _learn_ from their stupid mistakes?!"

"Because they've forgotten," I murmur quietly. Raphael quiets down as he looks at me. "Despite everything they told one another after 9/11 and everything they tell each other on every 9/11 thereafter, they _have_ forgotten. They've forgotten how much pain _hurts_. They've forgotten how senseless violence is. And they won't remember until the date is shoved down their throats. But hey… can you blame them? Do you _want_ to live with that memory every single day for the rest of your life? As time goes on, it numbs the pain. And the memory fades away. We're just as guilty of that as the humans are."

"Because in the end," Leo comments as he puts a hand on Raph's shoulder, "despite what we may want to believe… _we're_ only human. And we don't know anything else."

"Hey guys." We turn to look at Michelangelo as he came out of his room, stifling a yawn. "Guess I didn't hear Sensei wake me up. So, what's for breakfast?"

We looked at him for a moment, silent. Finally, Sensei moved away from me and headed towards the kitchen. Mikey followed after him. Raphael went back to his bench and picked up a couple of free weights. Leonardo and I shared a glance before he turned back to whatever he had been doing. I turned my attention back towards my e-mail.

Was there a lesson to all of this? Or was it just an outlet to feel the appropriate amount of pain and sorrow before we go back to our daily routines? Didn't the multitudes that died six years ago—both at the WTC and at the Pentagon—deserve more than a simple tip of the hat?

But then, what would they do if we gave them more? Sensei was right; what happened on 9/11 was a stupid move on the part of people blinded by hate. Just because they're not super villains who are out for world domination doesn't mean they're any less capable of committing an array of atrocities. As for us survivors, there's nothing we can do except pray that we never find ourselves walking down that road again. And the only way we can do that is to remember. Remember, remember, the eleventh of September. Heh, I think I'm crossing my historical wires again.

With a wistful sigh as I read an e-mail from April, I begin to plan the rest of the day.


End file.
